


An Elephant In Sasebo

by KrysKrossZee



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Harley Quinn (Comics), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, F/F, First Dates, Fluff, Japan, POV Female Character, POV Hermione Granger, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: Hermione has to travel a lot for work, this is something that he has come to accept, but that doesn't mean that she finds it at all easy when she has to work on location over Christmas. A chance meeting at a Christmas party is set to lift her spirits, however.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harleen Quinzel
Comments: 7
Kudos: 6
Collections: Hermione's Holiday Hideaway 2020





	An Elephant In Sasebo

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Hermione's Haven't for running this fest and for this prompt - I had fun!

Hermione clutched the badly wrapped lampshade to her chest as she walked slowly towards her friend's house. When she said friend, she used the term pretty loosely. She only knew Madison from work, but that was how she knew most people nowadays. Although since moving to Sasebo, she hadn't been able to use the excuse of not knowing the language as an excuse not to go out and make new friends - everyone here seemed to at least have at least a basic understanding of English even if she didn't speak any Japanese herself - she still hadn't bothered to really try. She didn't expect to be here for long, the Ministry tended to move her a lot depending on where they needed her the most, but she had been posted here for a month now. Madison had tried several times to get her to come to one of her parties and had only just succeeded because she'd caught Hermione in a moment of weakness.

Hermione had realised that she was going to spend the holidays in a strange country without any of her friends around her and that was why she had agreed to attend Madison's Christmas party. She hadn't expected there to be any requirements from her but she had soon discovered that she was expected to bring a gift, and not just any gift either but a novelty gift for what she had been informed was a 'white elephant exchange'.

The act of buying a present for someone she didn't even know was one that had stressed Hermione out enough without having the word 'novelty' thrown at her on top of it all. She didn't really know what was considered a novelty and so she had decided to go for something hideous. The lampshade that she had found had fit that bill to a tee and she had been far too happy when it had come to finally wrapping it, that she wouldn't have to look at that particular eyesore for a moment longer.

She shuffled the present as she approached Madison's house but just as she lifted her hand to knock on the door, it swung open and the ditzy blonde had wrapped her arms around her tightly. 

"Hermione! You made it!"

"Uh, yeah. Hi." Hermione gave her a quick hug back before pulling away. She tended not to be a touchy-feely person now. That sort of thing often lead to attachments being formed and if that happened then she knew that when she was made to move on it would hurt.

"Come on in!" Madison waved her inside but after introducing her to another blonde (who Hermione instantly forgot the name of and was too embarrassed to ask again) Madison disappeared to answer the door and Hermione didn't see her again for a while.

Hermione did her best to mingle with the rest of the guests, but she wasn't exactly good at small talk and so eventually found herself tucked away in a corner with a glass of wine. She didn't mind people watching but that didn't mean that she didn't feel entirely awkward about being there in the first place.

"You alright there?" A soft voice asked, causing Hermione to jump despite the tone, but she just about managed to stop herself from spilling her wine all down her front.

"Oh, um, sure." Hermione stuttered out as she turned to face the owner of the voice, a third blonde that she had yet to meet. This one gave off a completely different energy to Madison and the other one, however, though Hermione couldn't tell if that was just because she was wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. Hermione didn't know what it was about glasses that made her pay more attention, but there was definitely  _ something. _

"I take it you don't know a time else here either?" The woman asked as she gestured broadly to the room. "I only know Madison and I get the feeling that most people here only know her as well. Harleen Quinzel." The woman offered Hermione her hand.

Hermione shook her hand as she answered her with "Hermione Granger" and paused for a moment before she asked, "How do you know Madison?" She knew that she was the only one there from the office, or at least she didn't feel like she recognised anyone else here, but she supposed that didn't actually mean anything.

"We went to school together. I'm actually just over here for a quick work thing and she found out I was in the area so I just  _ had _ to come." The tone of Harleen's voice suggested that there were things that she would rather be doing rather than be stuck here with people she didn't know, but Hermione found that she was glad that there was at least one other person who wasn't  _ exactly _ enjoying themselves here.

"You're a long way from home?" Hermione asked after taking a sip from her glass. You'd have thought that moving around as often as she had done in the last five years that she would have started to pick up on what accents came from what place but she still had a terrible time trying to tell the hundreds of American accents apart from each other, especially when she found that almost every single English speaking European country now also had an American accent of their own.

"Yeah, New Jersey." Harleen smiled at her, which honestly helped to put Hermione at ease, although she hadn't even realised that she had been on edge at all until that moment. "What about you? You don't sound like you're from here?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, I'm not. I'm from England." There really wasn't any point in being more exact about where in England she was from as no-one she had told ever knew where, plus she wasn't always so keen about sharing those details either. Those sort of things were also how people ended up forming attachments to her, and her to them.

"And do you live here?" Harleen asked as she nodded out of the window, outside of which the sky had darkened at some point, but Hermione had stopped wondering when it was acceptable to leave the party when this woman had started chatting to her.

"For now, yeah. I work with Madison just now, but my line of work often sees me moving around often." Hermione explained, though for security reasons she couldn't actually go into detail about what it was that she did for a living. She hadn't even been able to tell Harry or Ron about her job, just that it would entail her travelling a lot and it would mean that she would rarely see them.

Harleen nodded slightly at that before she turned to face Hermione properly. "Listen, I know this is weird because we only just met but would you at all be interested in ditching this party to visit this amusement park, that is the only reason that I wasn't bummed about being sent to this island in the first place?"

"An amusement park?" Hermione asked slowly, an eyebrow raised slightly as she found herself considering ditching her one friend to head out on an unknown adventure.

"Yeah, I'm surprised you haven't been yet? It's modelled on a Dutch village." Harleen was already grabbing her jacket from the pile next to the drinks table. "So what do you say?"

Hermione followed in suit before she had even formed a verbal answer. She almost felt as if she should leave an apology behind for whichever poor soul got lumbered with the eyesore lampshade as she and Harleen headed out of the house unnoticed by any of the other party guests, but she then found as they headed out into the cool night air that she didn't seem to particularly care either.

The biggest problem with always being on the move, and of being a war survivor, was that everything was temporary and she could make these sort of decisions without really considering the consequences.


End file.
